Availability settings define normal hours and exceptions. Availability Blocks temporarily remove time that would otherwise be bookable.
Use Location hours for the normal weekly pattern at a site. Edit this recurring pattern on the schedule editor's Weekly template tab.
Use a date-specific exception when a date should replace the normal pattern with special hours. Add this on the schedule editor's Exceptions & holidays tab, which only offers one-time, date-only changes.
Use an Availability Block for a temporary closure, meeting, equipment outage, or service interruption without changing regular hours.
Use staff availability when only one person's working time changes.
A schedule's editor has two tabs:
Weekly template: the recurring hours for each day of the week. Changes here repeat every week going forward.
Exceptions & holidays: a calendar for single-date changes. Dates still following the weekly pattern show a repeat icon; dates with an override appear in red. This calendar no longer offers an option to edit an entire recurring weekday; use the Weekly template tab for that.
Go to Settings > Schedule > Availability Blocks. You can also open the Appointments calendar and select Block availability; CoolFocus opens the editor with the calendar's current date already selected.
The page shows upcoming blocks by default. Switch to Past to review earlier blocks.
Select Add block.
Choose one location or All locations.
Choose one appointment type or All appointment types.
Select a date or date range.
Leave Block the full day selected, or clear it and enter start and end times.
Add an internal reason such as Staff meeting, Holiday closure, or Equipment maintenance.
Select Save block.
The reason is for your team and helps administrators understand why availability was removed.
One location or every location.
One appointment type or every appointment type.
One day or a date range.
A partial-day time window or the full day.
Choose the narrowest scope that matches the interruption. For example, if Ultrasound is unavailable at Downtown from 1-3 PM but other services remain open, select Downtown, Ultrasound, that date, and 1-3 PM.
Use Edit to change a block. Use the delete action to restore the time to normal availability. Other rules, such as regular hours, staff coverage, resources, lead time, or booking limits, may still keep the time unavailable.
The Appointments calendar and Scheduler grid use two different gray patterns so you can tell at a glance why a slot isn't bookable:
Closed time, such as hours outside the location's schedule, a holiday, a date exception, or a scheduler block, displays as a diagonal gray cross-hatch.
Past time, meaning the time has already elapsed, displays as a solid gray fill. This is distinct from the closed hatch so you can quickly separate "already happened" from "not available".
If a slot is both past and closed, the calendar shows the solid past fill, since elapsed time takes visual priority. Check the legend above the calendar for a reminder of what each shade means.
A date affected by a closure, holiday, date exception, or scheduler block shows a compact status label under the date number instead of a full-height, event-style block. This keeps the schedule grid readable while still making unavailable time obvious. It applies in Day, Week, grouped Day, and Month views, and in both light and dark mode.
A day that is closed all day shows a red "Closed" label. If a reason was entered (for example, a holiday name), it appears underneath the label.
A day with modified hours shows an orange label with the open time range, such as "9:00 AM-1:00 PM", instead of a generic "Modified Hours" block. If more than one open range applies to the same day, the ranges are listed together, such as "9:00 AM-11:00 AM, 1:00 PM-3:00 PM".
Days that are fully open show no label at all, so the grid stays uncluttered.
If any override on a day is a full closure, the day-level label and the month view's shading both summarize the day as closed, even if part of the day is also modified. Open the label to see the full breakdown.
When more than one override applies to the same day, or an override has a reason to show, the label becomes clickable (shown with a dotted underline). Selecting it opens a small "Schedule overrides" popover listing each rule that applies to that date, with its time range and reason, without navigating away from the calendar or changing which day is selected. A day with a single override and no reason does not need this popover and simply shows the plain label.
These labels only appear when the calendar is showing business hours. If business hours are hidden for a view, override labels are hidden along with the closed-day shading.
Unavailable periods remain non-bookable and available periods remain bookable regardless of how the label is displayed; this change only affects how overrides are visualized, not scheduling behavior.
Availability Blocks do not target an individual staff member. Use staff availability for full-day time off or custom staff hours. Partial staff-time blocking directly from the calendar is planned separately so it can correctly reduce that person's coverage without closing the entire service.
After saving, check the same appointment type, location, and date in Scheduler availability or online booking. The slot engine enforces Availability Blocks for both full-day and partial-day closures.
